The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust (hact) have launched the first housing rights website to be specifically aimed at answering housing rights queries for new migrants in England.
Visitors to the site, at www.housing-rights.info , are able enter as either frontline housing advisers or new arrivals to receive advice and guidance about their housing rights, including the law on eligibility for social housing and related welfare benefits. The site includes sections on the specific housing rights of new migrants who are: refugees, EEA workers and other EEA nationals and family members, A8 nationals, Bulgarians and Romanians, work permit holders, people fleeing domestic violence and people with social care needs. Visitors are also be able to select links to relevant documents and websites, including DWP and the Home Office.
Arten Llazari, Manager of the Refugee & Migrant Centre based in Wolverhampton, said: “This website is easy to use and extremely timesaving. It will prove an essential tool for all agencies providing housing advice and assistance to refugees and new migrants. Our advisers already have it on their PC favorites list!”
Cecilia Ngeze, a refugee based in London, said: “I found the site very straight forward, well arranged and informative. It gave me lots of new information that I didn’t know before hand. I gave my friend details for the site and it helped her find answers to a difficult housing situation.”
Sarah Walker, a housing officer at Staffordshire Housing Association, said: “The website is easy to use and informative. It provides up-to-date, relevant information for housing professionals and people seeking accommodation which hopefully will make the process less confusing for all concerned. It is certainly a website that we will be using on a regular basis.”
The site was developed as part of the joint hact/CIH Opening Doors project, which is funded by Communities and Local Government and the Housing Corporation, and is testing practical ways that housing associations can meet the housing needs of refugees, asylum seekers and other newly arrived migrant communities.
Heather Petch, hact’s Director, said: “This website fills an information gap and will do much to combat some of the informal gatekeeping that can occur as a result of opinion, rather than fact. It also unravels the complex and often misunderstood position regarding areas such as access to local authority waiting lists and how the law affects access to housing association stock.”
John Perry, CIH Policy Adviser, said: “One of the commonest problems that housing professionals meet in dealing with housing inquiries from migrants from abroad is knowing whether they have any entitlement to housing or homelessness assistance, and whether they are eligible for housing benefit. This web resource should fill this gap – and we hope that it will help to ensure that migrants get the help to which they are entitled.”
Two other sets of resources from the Opening Doors project are also available:
• a review of recent studies and reports about national and local programmes and projects working with new migrants, especially EU migrants (downloadable at www.hact.org.uk and www.cih.org/policy/openingdoors);
• a set of 10 training modules on refugee and new migrant housing issues (downloadable at www.hact.org.uk and www.cih.org/policy/openingdoors ).
Filed under: housing, migrant support, projects | Tagged: hact, housing, housing rights, migrant, migrant worker
